''il Fatto Quotidiano'' (English: "The Daily Fact") is an Italian daily newspaper owned by ''Editoriale Il Fatto SpA'' published in Rome, Italy. It was founded on 23 September 2009 and was edited by Antonio Padellaro until 2015, when

Marco Travaglio Marco Travaglio (; born 13 October 1964) is an Italian investigative journalist, writer and opinion leader, editor of the independent journal ''Il Fatto Quotidiano''. Biography Travaglio was born in Turin and earned a degree in history from th ...

became the editor. According to several observers (including the paper's co-founder

Michele Santoro Michele Santoro (born 2 July 1951) is an Italian journalist, and television host and presenter. He also served till October 2005 as Member of the European Parliament for Southern Italy with the United in the Olive Tree list, part of the Sociali ...

and former contributor Luca Telese), the paper is politically close to the

Five Star Movement The Five Star Movement ( it, Movimento 5 Stelle , M5S) is a political party in Italy. Its leader and president is Giuseppe Conte, Prime Minister of Italy from 2018 until 2021. The M5S was founded on 4 October 2009 by Beppe Grillo, a comedian an ...

. Following the start of the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

, the paper was accused of taking a pro-Russian stance which, in addition to its having further expounded controversial theories on the German occupation of Italy during

WW2 World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, prompted the resignation of the journalist and co-founder

Furio Colombo Furio Colombo (born 1 January 1931) is an Italian journalist and politician, former editor-in-chief of ''L'Unità''. Biography Journalistic and academic career Colombo was born in Châtillon, Aosta Valley in a Jewish family. In the mid-1950 ...

History

Late within 2008, Marco Travaglio was asked by fellow journalist Massimo Fini to advertise the latter's newly founded magazine, '' La Voce del Ribelle'' ("''The Rebel's Voice''"), on the former's blog, voglioscendere.it, with the objective of gathering "a few hundred subscriptions". Thousands of people answered, allowing Fini's magazine to succeed.La Voce del Ribelle, a year later
by Marco Travaglio on his blog. Because of this success, Travaglio started considering the idea of using his blog to launch a new newspaper, independent from public funding. The intention of publishing a new national newspaper was announced by

on his blog, ''voglioscendere.it'' on 1 June 2009.Voglioscendere.it – Marco Travaglio – Abbonatevi al Fatto
/ref> The title ''il Fatto Quotidiano'' ("''The Daily Fact''") was chosen as a homage to journalist

Enzo Biagi Enzo Biagi (; 9 August 1920 – 6 November 2007) was an Italian journalist, writer and former partisan. Life and career Biagi was born in Lizzano in Belvedere, and began his career as a journalist in Bologna. In 1952, he worked on the screenpla ...

, who was purged from state television

RAI RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana (; commercially styled as Rai since 2000; known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane) is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many ter ...

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Silvio Berlusconi Silvio Berlusconi ( ; ; born 29 September 1936) is an Italian media tycoon and politician who served as Prime Minister of Italy in four governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies ...

's request, and whose hugely successful daily ten-minute

prime-time Prime time or the peak time is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for a television show. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...

news commentary on

Rai Uno Rai 1 () is an Italian free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana. It is the company's flagship television channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream and general ...

, named ''Il Fatto'', was removed from programming. The newspaper could not just be named "Il Fatto" because RAI, the Italian public broadcast vetoed it mentioning name ownership, even if its very management was the one who put it off the air. In June 2009, ''l'Antefatto'', a promotional website, was set up containing information about subscription and the development of the project. The publisher stated he would not use the Italian state advertising and funding to run the newspaper but instead he would use only money from sales and market advertisements. The first issue, printed in 100,000 copies in addition to 32,000 subscriptions, was already sold out before 8:00 AM on 23 September, even though distribution was limited to the largest cities. As a consequence, the newspaper announced it would immediately double the number of copies and publish the first issue, free of charge, on the Internet. It is considered close to the

(M5S). The pro-M5S line of the paper has caused internal clashes in the editorial staff, causing the resignation of several journalists, including Luca Telese,

, Davide Vecchi, Stefano Feltri and

Ownership

''il Fatto Quotidiano'' is published by Editoriale Il Fatto S.p.A., an Italian company. The company regulation states that up to 70% of the

shares In financial markets, a share is a unit of equity ownership in the capital stock of a corporation, and can refer to units of mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts. Share capital refers to all of the shares of an ...

can be owned by entrepreneurs, but no one of them can own more than 16% of the

share capital A corporation's share capital, commonly referred to as capital stock in the United States, is the portion of a corporation's equity that has been derived by the issue of shares in the corporation to a shareholder, usually for cash. "Share capita ...

, estimated in 600,000 euros.Giorgio Poidomani, ''Senza Padroni'' in ''il Fatto Quotidiano'' page 22 published on 23 September 2009
/ref> The remaining 30% of the

is owned by the newspaper columnists. Therefore, no important choice can be made without the consent of the columnists as a 70% majority + 1 is needed to carry out decisions about the newspaper policy or editor election. The

managing director A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Giorgio Poidomani Giorgio may refer to: * Castel Giorgio, ''comune'' in Umbria, Italy * Giorgio (name), an Italian given name and surname * Giorgio Moroder, or Giorgio, Italian record producer ** ''Giorgio'' (album), an album by Giorgio Moroder * "Giorgio" (son ...

Format and circulation

''il Fatto Quotidiano'' is printed in the

compact Compact as used in politics may refer broadly to a pact or treaty; in more specific cases it may refer to: * Interstate compact * Blood compact, an ancient ritual of the Philippines * Compact government, a type of colonial rule utilized in British ...

format and full colour. It is distributed in Italy by post and through over 25,000

newsagents A newsagent's shop or simply newsagent's or paper shop (British English), newsagency (Australian English) or newsstand (American and Canadian English) is a business that sells newspapers, magazines, cigarettes, snacks and often items of local ...

in the major Italian towns and regions. A significant fraction of the readership, about one fifth, is made out of subscriptions to the

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

version of the newspaper. The circulation of ''il Fatto Quotidiano'' was 113,000 copies on 25 December 2009.The ''Fatto'''s facts, by Antonio Padellaro
The paper had a circulation of 78,669 copies in 2010.

Editors

* Antonio Padellaro (2009–2015) * Marco Travaglio (2015–present)

Columnists

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fatto Quotidiano 2009 establishments in Italy Italian-language newspapers Newspapers published in Rome Newspapers established in 2009 Daily newspapers published in Italy Italian news websites